Let's talk about the brine.

[JackalG7]

This "mechanic" isn't really a mechanic. It's a cover for laziness to not include swimming.

One should ask in every game design decision "what does this add to the experience?" and the answer should always be something substantial. It's not in this case. This is coming from someone not a hater, I love various other aspects about DD2. I have various issues with things though, and today this one is at the forefront.

I just had an awesome experience with a griffin extremely soured by this factor. My only pawn and I clung onto a griffin as it soared, my pawn hanging onto its tail, and me on its back. I cautiously move to its head, careful to keep myself balanced. I stop clinging to the griffin, I take out my sword, and impale its head with a heavy attack, causing the griffin to lose control and plummet downwards towards the ground. Only... it ended up coming to a river. That means that the griffin just poofed out of existence, and me and my pawn died. That's super dumb.

My FIRST encounter with a drake ever was severely underwhelming. I was streaming the game to a friend over discord too who was wondering if the game was good. I said I wasn't a good enough level to tackle a drake yet though, but decided I'd try my hand for the sake of entertaining her.

At the very beginning of the fight, the drake did a weird twirl that made it TOUCH a river that was a tad deeper than the shallow waters we could cross. The drake poofed out of existence.

No. It's not okay for my first experience with a drake to fumble so hard, it was very jarring and takes you away from the immersion.

It's not acceptable for an open world game, a modern one, to have water be an insta-death because they got lazy. If you don't want players to swim far and have water be a reliable way to traverse, then have it be something similar to RDR2 where you can't really swim for long because it drains your stamina... then say the brine overtook you then. But insta-kill for both players, pawns AND giant bosses like griffins/dragons makes these experiences ridiculous.

[Goblin]

This game just wasn't meant to have swimming. The first one didn't either. Plenty of open world games don't have swimming. The brine will also not instakill you if you have sufficient health. Not the same for your pawns though.

There will be other battles to be had, sorry the Drake was underwhelming for you. There will be many more to come.

[JackalG7]

Originally posted by Goblin:

This game just wasn't meant to have swimming. The first one didn't either. Plenty of open world games don't have swimming

There will be other battles to be had, sorry the Drake was underwhelming for you. There will be many more to come.

Look at what I wrote though. There's workarounds to where it's not instant. Kind of like how it's very limited in red dead redemption...

Insta-poof isn't okay man. Especially for giant creatures.

I've finished the game. I've had many awesome moments. I'm just saying this factor is still an issue and lazy.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by JackalG7:

Originally posted by Goblin:

This game just wasn't meant to have swimming. The first one didn't either. Plenty of open world games don't have swimming

There will be other battles to be had, sorry the Drake was underwhelming for you. There will be many more to come.

Look at what I wrote though. There's workarounds to where it's not instant. Kind of like how it's very limited in red dead redemption...

Insta-poof isn't okay man. Especially for giant creatures.

I've finished the game. I've had many awesome moments. I'm just saying this factor is still an issue and lazy.

I saw, I do think the insta poof is silly, but I accepted it as just part of the world. I can get where you are coming from though, it can be quite anticlimatic.